Monday, 31 December 2012

A Very Merry Christmas

Christmas is a very special time of year, even more so for me these days with Leo around.

I love how everyone gets together and spends that one day a year breaking food and enjoying each other's company. I have to say that I absolutely adore the run up to the big day, the excitement and magic that this one day a year brings in it's wake.

Christmas Eve is pure magic, the anticipation is enough to awaken the child in any grown up and for me I just cannot wait to see the look on Leo's face as he begins to un-wrap his gifts.

This Christmas was Leo's second and in a year the differences in him are astounding.

On Christmas Eve we packed our car full of goodies and drove the 2 minute drive up the road to my parents house, the car was full to bursting and after taking a rather long time to pack it all in...I then had to un-pack it at our destination.

Santa popped by on Christmas Eve, not that we saw him...But some gifts for Leo were left. Santa had brought Leo big boy pajamas and his very first pair of slippers in preparation for his nightly slumber.

The stockings were hung and after we put out a mince pie (home made I hasten to add!) a glass of milk and of course a carrot for the hungry Rudolph, Leo was put to bed, where he dreamed his dreams until at least 9am. In the mad house this time on Christmas Day is un-heard of, normally we are up before the sun even rears his sleepy head. With my younger siblings getting older, it seems that they now tend to sleep longer, even at Christmas.

We all arrived in the lounge to find that Father Christmas has indeed graced us with his presence this year, and the amount of gifts under the tree insinuates that we have all been incredibly good this year...Santa must have missed all the mischief that Leo get's up to and I am guessing he certainly does not read this blog!

I had in-visioned Leo running around and opening every present in sight, the same way he devours the newspaper as soon as it is posted through the letter box. But actually Leo was very restrained, he opened a present and was presented with a baby doll. A little baby boy. As soon as he saw baby in the box Leo took him over to his Uncle and waited patiently for him to open it. Leo then brought baby and the baby's toy milk bottle over to me so that he could feed him. It was lovely watching Leo play with him and really interact, but it was clear that Leo didn't want to open anything else after that first gift!

I managed to hide baby so that we could open more presents together. A pram, a sit and ride train, a quad bike and play food soon joined his expanding gift pile, but it was far to obvious that he was not interested in the act of present opening but more the playing that followed after. It was great seeing him get the play value out of everything and you could really see he was enjoying every moment, despite the over whelmed look on his little face.

Christmas lunch did not appeal to Leo, he didn't even devour any pigs in blankets...I thought he would love the sausages! Leo merely picked at his dinner and pushed it around his plate. However he did take to dipping his fingers in the bread sauce and exclaiming 'yum!'.

Leo discovered Christmas Crackers this year and even got to pull one with his Uncle, despite the odds of winning being against him. Leo won! He worse his crown with pride and

Since having Leo Christmas Day has become extra busy as so many people want to see my little man and enjoy the moments of him opening his gifts. So after spending the day at my parent's we headed over to Luke's Dad's so that we could give them that special time.

Leo was reluctant to open yet more gifts and avoided the presents, and would show interest in everything but! He finally opened up the rubber bath ducks and decided the best way to play with them was by throwing them at Granddad and shouting 'B'.

Christmas carried on for Leo well into Boxing Day when we visited his Nanny and Granddad where yet more presents were waiting for him. The over night break seemed to give Leo the motivation to get on opening more presents, a tool bench complete with tools, a hop along bunny rabbit and even a nursery rhyme CD for the car.

Santa even came along to pay the kiddly winks a visit, and as expected Leo was not a fan! He quite happily took the gifts that Santa was baring, but Leo left the rest of the detail to be desired.

Poor little Leo topped off Boxing Day by coming down with a viral infection. He went down for his nap perfectly ok and then awoke completely out of character and with a raging temperature.

He spent the rest of the evening cuddled up and very lethargic. We had a pretty rough night with little man and had to keep bringing his temperature back down, but by the next day Leo was well on a the mend again!

Leo's second Christmas has been wonderful, and even now a week later, we still have a Santa Sack full of gifts for Leo to still un-wrap. Even now that all the Christmas decorations have come down and we are met with the bleak January gloom, we still have those special memories of all the magic that took place.

I hope you have all had a very merry Christmas and are now easing back into the day to day runnings!